Week 7 (Week 1 Atkins): -3.4 Lbs

I have survived a full week of the Atkins diet! It appears to have paid off – I have lost 3.4lbs in weight and dropped around 1.5 inches from my stomach. My hips & thigh measurement are about the same. I don’t know how much of this is actual fat loss and how much is water loss – I guess the 2nd week results will be more revealing.

So, it’s not just calories in v calories out

I read in my Paleo book a couple of weeks ago that calories do matter and I was hugely disappointed. I was under the impression that as long as I kept my carbs low, I could eat what I wanted and not worry about calories. It turns out that is true, but my carbs were not low enough. This week my calories have been at maintenance level – I’ve had more than I was on my Paleo days but the carbs have obviously been MUCH lower.

Mark Sisson recommends 50-100g carbs a day for steady weight loss, or less than 50 for short periods to boost weight loss. Atkins starts you off at 20g a day and then after the 2 week induction has you increase daily intake by 5g per week until you find a point where you’re still losing at an acceptable level and eating an increased amount and wider variety of carbs. I like the Atkins approach because it lets you experiment for yourself and see exactly how the carbs affect you on an individual level. Everybody is different.

There is one part of Atkins I have not complied with this week – exercise again. I am still struggling with it. I keep coming up with ideas to try and make it interesting so I’ll exercise at home but it’s not taking hold. The recommendations in the Atkins book are a little flakey – in one section he says you must exercise every day and in another section he outlines 3 different workout plans, none of which are more than 4 days per week. Honestly, it looks like it was put in the book as an afterthought. However Mark and other Paleo guys recommend a LOT more exercise and this is most likely taken into account in the carb level recommendations. The Atkins book suggests that someone exercising vigorously for 45 mins for 6 days a week would be able to eat up to 90g carbs a day and still lose weight.

I’m not entirely sure how exercise factors in when carbs are low. I know that in terms of calories burned, people often underestimate just what they are burning – it’s not hundreds of calories an hour for most activities. But there’s also the effect on metabolism and in the case of low carb, I’m guessing that exercising would quickly deplete what little levels of glycogen there are in the blood stream thus forcing your body to burn fat if it wasn’t already. This coming week I will make a more concerted effort to exercise.

How I felt through the week

This diet is difficult for me. My biggest challenge is that I just don’t like all that many vegetables and so for an evening meal, I would usually have meat & carbs – spaghetti bolognaise for instance. I had the same difficulty when first making the transition to Paleo but this is even more restrictive – no fruit, no nuts, no starchy vegetables. However, if it continues to work as intended then it will gradually get easier as I go on as I will be re-introducing more foods back in gradually as each week passes.

The breakfasts have by far been the easiest – eggs fill me up. By lunchtime on Monday though I was hungry and lunch was not that satisfying. By the evening I just couldn’t seem to curb the hunger and I was craving sweet things as well. Thankfully this was better on Tuesday but over the next couple of days I experienced bouts of tiredness – particularly around lunchtime and in the afternoons. This passed by the end of the week but the evening snack attack has still been there most evenings as I have sometimes struggled to come up with a decent meal for dinner. It would be so much easier if I liked more vegetables!

Last night I allowed myself to get really hungry before dinner and I was suddenly hit with really strong cravings – I wanted takeaway – Indian, Chinese, Pizza, and sweet stuff too! I felt really miserable for a while but then I reluctantly ate dinner, the hunger subsided and the cravings went with it too. Turns out that hunger brings back all my cravings so lesson learned there – don’t let myself get overly hungry!

Plans for this coming week

After Thursdays realisation that I was mis-calculating the carbs, I am now properly on 20g a day and not 26! So officially I am on day 4 today and not day 8. However, I think I will decide whether or not to do those extra few days of induction based on this week’s results. The Atkins book has a table of average weight loss in the 2 week induction period for men & women based on metabolic resistance. A woman with average metabolic resistance should lose around 6lbs. Depending on how much of this week’s loss is water weight, I could be on track to hit that so if I do, I see no reason to continue the induction for additional days.

Even though I like seeing big numbers, I am worried that I will eventually rebel against this level of restriction, have a blow out an undo all this work. I’d rather move onto the next stage, start upping the carbs, re-introcuding fruits, nuts etc to get back to a more Paleo diet and be on something I can more easily stick to over the longer term.